Melanotan I
Also called MT-1, afamelanotide, Scenesse
Melanotan I is a copy of the hormone that tells your skin to make pigment.
This one has been through full clinical trials and is an approved medicine somewhere in the world. The ranges below are drawn from those trials and from what the community reports using.
- Skin & hair
- Tanning
The quick answer
Melanotan I is a copy of the hormone that tells your skin to make pigment. It is an approved medicine in Europe and the United States under the name afamelanotide, for a rare condition where sunlight causes severe pain. What most people use it for is colour with far less sun.
What it is not
Not a self-tanner and not a sunscreen. Pigment still needs a trigger, and pigment is not full protection.
Why people use it
☀️ Tanning with far less sun exposure; 🎯 Selective - none of the libido or nausea effects of MT2; 🏥 Approved in the EU and US as afamelanotide; 🧴 Reported as a more even colour than MT2
What people report using
These are ranges other people have reported running. They are here so you can see what has actually been done — they are not medical advice and not a recommendation for you.
- How often
- Daily while loading, then 1–2 times weekly
- Route
- subcutaneous
- Evidence for this
- Approved medicine
Colour appearing from around day five to ten with sun exposure, deepening over a few weeks.
What to expect, and when
Week 1-2: first colour, with light exposure. Week 3-6: full development. Maintenance is described as occasional rather than continuous.
Side effects, and what people do about them
Mild next to MT2. Injection-site reaction, some flushing, occasional nausea early on. Existing moles and freckles darken - the standard community advice is a skin check before starting and attention to anything that changes, which is sound advice.
Go deeper
Open these only if you want them.
How it actually works
An alpha-MSH analogue acting at the MC1 receptor, driving eumelanin production. It is much more selective for MC1 than Melanotan II, which is exactly why it lacks the sexual and appetite effects of its better-known sibling.
More on the evidence
Afamelanotide is approved for erythropoietic protoporphyria. Tanning use is off-label.
The case against
This one is approved - in the EU since 2014 and the US since 2019 - for erythropoietic protoporphyria. That is a real human safety record, earned for a different purpose than most people use it for.
What people report, in full
The community treats Melanotan I as the sensible sibling, and the comparison to MT2 is the entire conversation: MT1 gives you colour and very little else, while MT2 gives you colour plus nausea, plus appetite suppression, plus the erection effect that people either want or very much do not. Anyone who wants tanning alone is consistently pointed here. The colour is described as slower and more even than MT2, and as needing some sun to develop rather than none at all - the recurring correction is that this is not a self-tanner, it makes your skin respond more strongly to the light it does get. Mole darkening comes up in nearly every thread, and the community handles it responsibly, treating a skin check as ordinary rather than paranoid.
Sources and review
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411481
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25494545/
Last reviewed 2026-09-08.
People also look at
Still not sure?
Ask it the way you would ask a person. Follow-up questions are the point — it remembers what you already said.
Ask about Melanotan I